Opinion Sur
During the Suez Canal crisis in 1956, the at the time American president Dwight Eisenhower withdrew his support from France and England, who wanted to invade Egypt in response to the Canal’s nationalization. The American disapproval and its unspoken support to Gamal Abdel Nasser’s –Egyptian leader- new nationalism conclusively (and quite despicably for the European) marked the end of traditional colonialism. Until then France and England had colonies in the Arabic world and made and unmade countries according to their strategic and economic interests. During the Suez Canal crisis in 1956, the at the time American president Dwight Eisenhower withdrew his support from France and England, who wanted to invade Egypt in response to the Canal’s nationalization. The American disapproval and its unspoken support to Gamal Abdel Nasser’s –Egyptian leader- new nationalism conclusively (and quite despicably for the European) marked the end of traditional colonialism. Until then France and England had colonies in the Arabic world and made and unmade countries according to their strategic and economic interests. United States, partly because of its anti-colonial tradition, imposed its will to control the Middle East in a different manner: through diplomacy, military alliances, and economic interests (mostly energetic), but respecting the sovereignty of the region’s countries in the formal aspect. The European colonialism is over and the informal American empire has begun, hegemonic and philanthropic (economic aid and security alliances) since the American power emerged from the Second World War 300 times wealthier than it was at the beginning of that military outbreak. This fact, well played in its favor, assured the US domain over the western world and its areas of influence for half a century.
During the last G-8 meeting in Northern Ireland President Obama could not unite wills nor obtain backing for any of his initiatives of foreign policy. The Russian President abruptly hindered the American intention of intervening in the Syrian civil war by providing weapons to the rebels. The Europeans expressed their distress regarding the American attempt to spy on communications from European citizens and criticized Washington for its extra-judicial disappearances and executions policy (a sad reminiscence for Argentina). The American President did not have better luck in his following visit to Berlin, where he had once been given an enthusiastic and multitudinous welcome. The power erosion and the commitments he was forced to carry out in both of his administrations weakened his backing. In short, the world (East and West) is collecting the bill of disastrous interventions in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan) and has realized the American superpower is no longer what it used to be. The financial crisis, the relocation of material production towards the East, the emergence of new economic powers, and the domestic political paralysis in the United States, have eroded its power.
Just as European colonialism died after long agony, American imperialism has commenced its own decline, at the end of which a world that is multipolar, troublesome, lacking replacement in terms of absolute domain and which will face constant crises awaits. The underlying issues have not been resolved in this new world, but one thing is certain: no one dances to the beat of American whims anymore. Sic transit gloria mundi: neither international consensus nor superpower hegemony; rebellions and revolutions everywhere; regional wars; great inequity and social precariousness; concentrated and poorly allocated resources. Chaos reigns and the almighty sinks. As Goethe said in the Valmy battle field to the European troops who unsuccessfully tried to smother the French revolution: ‘gentlemen, only one thing is certain: we are entering a new era in the history of mankind.’
History, however, teaches us that nothing repeats itself and that there is much to be learned. Hope, as always, is less placed in leaders as it is in the mobilization of ‘common’ people for greater equity. Mobilizations in ‘successful’ emerging countries, such as Turkey and Brazil, are calling themselves ‘common sense movements’. In Brazil, at least, the President is already listening.
